“The phrase back then was ‘Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be’. We were interested in representing both that and the fact that with the advent of the television set, a living room now had two centres to it – the TV and the fireplace. We set about inventing something that was as important as both of these two objects called the object that could take centre place in a room. There was no brief… I used card and black velvet . We nicknamed it ‘the present’. The actual object, a hole in fact, wasn’t present at all, but absent. The collage was shot using a Hasselblad camera with a 50mm wide-angle lens. On seeing the finished item the band were naturally overjoyed.”. George Hardie, Q Magazine, 2003.

“It was also designed to symbolise the overwhelming presence of Led Zeppelin’s music. The band liked the concept so much that they decided to call the album Presence after the project.”. Storm Thorgerson, Q Magazine, 2003

Swan Song sent out a limited edition of 1,000 three-dimensional plastic models of the obelisk. Wings At The Speed Of Sound made way for Presence at #1 on the Billboard album chart in the week of May 1st, 1976. As a testament to Led Zeppelin’s power, Presence hit the summit in its second week on the chart, giving the band its fifth career chart topper.

“There’s a hell of a lot of spontaneity about Presence.” Jimmy Page, Q Magazine, 2003.

The design of Led Zeppelin’s Presence stemmed from an idea of the Hipgnosis team led by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell. Thorgerson continues to design album cover art for clients as diverse as The Cranberries and Janes Addiction. Aubrey Powell is now also an in-demand video director and he has recently worked on the Led Zeppelin DVD program, released May 2003. Both are respected for their individual and combined designs for Pink Floyd album cover artwork. That is also available as hand-signed limited edition fine art prints published by Rockoptic.